“The fuck?”
Rafe laughed. “.Besides the odd text here and there,no one has seen or heard from you since you ran out of the café.”
Shit.That’d been the morning I chased after Kate and fell down this damn rabbit hole. I’d never gone this long without going out with Rafe or Liam. It was a miracle neither of them had shown up at my door.
“Do you want to go out or not?” I snapped.
Rafe understood though. All three of us had our fair share of shit days. Days where we snarled and growled at everyone who so much as looked in our direction.
“Yeah, man,” he said. “Tell me where, and I’m there.”
I rattled off the name of one of the clubs we usually went to and hung up. I might not have had the type of family Kate had, but I had friends. Friends who were as close to brothers as I’d get.
Two hours later, I questioned my hasty decision to go out. The music was too loud, and although there hadn’t been a lack of female attention, I wasn’t interested. Which meant that while Rafe kept busy on the dance floor, I knocked back shots like it was my damn job.
My buzz was buzzing.
“What’s up with you?” Rafe yelled over the music when he returned to our booth.
Another Jägermeister burned down my throat. “You ever wonder how different we’d be if we’d had normal childhoods?”
“Define normal?” He picked up his scotch and swirled it around his glass.
I took another shot.
“You know, parents who actually cared and shit.” Spreading my legs wide, I leaned forward. I looked at Rafe. His image was a bit blurry. That was my first clue I’d probably had enough to drink.
The second one was when my brain to mouth filter went to shit.
“Maybe if our parents showed us how to care for others, we’d be settled down with two-point-five kids, and all that crap.”
For a long, long time, my friend didn’t say anything. He just fucking watched me. That damn itch, or ache, or whatever the hell it was, burned behind my breastbone again. I rubbed the spot, but it didn’t do shit to alleviate the feeling.
“What?” I finally barked and knocked back another shot. “Why are you fucking staring like that?”
Rafe, bastard that he was, wasn’t fazed. “Do youwantto settle down and have two-point-five kids?”
“No.” The word didn’t come as easy as it used to.
Keeping his gaze on me, he sipped from his glass. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure.” My blood boiled. Not because he was being pushy. It was Kate. It was always fucking Kate.
When Rafe had asked about settling down, all I saw was her…and Millie. I wanted them. It scared the shit out of me because I didn’t know the first damn thing about being there for someone.
I didn’t know how not to be selfish and how the hell not to hurt them.
“Hi there.”
The woman’s sweet tone snapped me out of my pity party. Somewhere during my musings, she and her friend had slid into our booth. And judging by her expectant expression, she was there for more than a hello.
I studied her openly. She was pretty. And the exact opposite of the woman plaguing my every damn thought. Blonde hair and...I didn’t know what color her eyes were, only that they didn’t stare straight into my soul.
Another shot burned down my throat.
This woman was exactly what I needed.
Chapter twenty-three
